School Daze
by Meander Red
Summary: Tsunade makes a bet with Minato, the future Fourth Hokage that she can easily spend a day teaching the village's youngest students. But teaching children is not as easy as she first thought. Especially not with some of the class's future shinobi. Hiatus
1. Chapter 1

"And that particular hokage was also a great teacher," Iruka informed his class as he pointed to the monument as the sounds of the restless children floated in on the breeze that swept through Tsunade's office. A smile began to curve her lips sweetly as she thought how likely it was that any of her former students would remember her as a good teacher. She could already hear Yondaime laughing as she began to think back to that fateful day.

Tsunade groaned as she rolled and checked the clock. It was 5:00 in the bloody morning, and she was awake. She rubbed her head, sorely tempted to fall back asleep until after her hangover was gone and tried to remember why she shouldn't. Wait, the bet that she had made with Minato. That was why. She sat up, cursing the headache which felt as though it were about to split her head open without a moment's warning, and moved to get showered and drinking as much tea as she could manage before getting dressed and swallowing the last of the tea on her way out the door. While this did not improve her temper any, it did make her feel marginally more awake, enough so that she could remember what had lead to this ridiculous bet in the first place. It was Minato's fault. It wasn't as if everyone in the village hadn't been pitching in to help covering the classes for the children who were aspiring to be shinobi while their teacher recovered from the badly broken leg he had gotten on mission. So far, it seemed that nothing had gone right with it between the fever and the remnants of the jitsu that had made it impossible to tell where the chakra was for the healing ninjas to work with it. She had been on mission almost constantly it seemed to past week or so on missions that were normally starter work for the gennin and chounin. And yet it was only Minato who was being praised for his work when the young jounin job was supposed to be watching the youngest students in the village, the children who were still considered too young to study to be shinobi but were still learning the laws of the village. A fact that Tsunade had pointed out archly to him in a flare of temper when she was drinking two nights before. And the normally easy tempered teenager had snapped at that, barking out some gibberish about the brats' potential to become shinobi and their strength, only increasing her irritation at him. Which only worsened listening to that pervert Jiraiya telling Minato that she wouldn't last a day in his shoes while Sarutobi and Uncle Tobiramu had listened in amused agreement. She went to the classroom office and gathered the papers that she needed to fill out before she started, glancing at the barely lit sky. She couldn't wait to win this bet!


	2. Chapter 2

Twenty nine eager little faces stared up at her expectantly from the newly seated rows of children who might come up to her waist, even now sitting across from her in an attempt to imitate her traditional lotus stance as they sat waiting on her every word. Or, that was what she thought they were waiting on, as she looked at them, amazed by the difference between this group and the flock of ill-behaved midgets she had first seen as she had watched them arriving, a good handful of whom were already beginning to show a rather impressive amount of chakra. She hadn't been able to find the roll list in the stack of papers which had been awaiting her, but she could certainly recognize those ones quite easily.

Like the one small boy with the oddly shaped glasses, which honestly resembled a cross between goggles and a visor than the traditional spectacle form who was already beginning to fidget restlessly. And the little girl who sat in among all of the boys, who had looked as sweet as honey when she had pushed one of the bigger boys for trying to tell her what to do.

Or the little boy who as soon as her back had been turned had pulled out a bandana and begun to try to tie it around his face in imitation of the shinobi masks who had surreptitiously begun a janken contest with the boy next to him. The two shoved each other roughly, and Tsunade lectured on, biting back a smile as she noticed just how different those two were as the other, dressed in the childlike gi and hakama of a martial artist which had been dyed a rather vibrant shade of green, moved to respond so enthusiastically that it was clear that there was not a subtle bone in his body.

And twenty-five other students, who also in those five minutes had begun to squirm restlessly, fidgeting a little even as they kept their faces looking so solemnly up at her. Even the one little boy who had seemed so angelic moments before was beginning to snicker as the children all clustered on top of each other to watch the janken contest between the two boys. The one who had been attempting to create a mask out of a bandana moments before won and the entire class began laughing except for the green clad boy who looked rather put out by the exchange. She bit back a chuckle thinking about how odd that it was that boys were so competitive even at this age when a small glob of goo rocketed from one of the two janken players straight towards her. Apparently, if the gales of laughter that met this were any indication, class had just officially begun. And it was war.


	3. Chapter 3

Tsunade picked up a book and slammed it down with a thump on the desk. Or at least it look like a slam. She had long ago learned how to control her strength enough to manage those sort of displays without breaking anything. Startled, the students settled from their chattering and bickering long enough to sit in stunned silence while she gathered the pile of muddy weeds into the trash can and moved in front to lean on it momentarily before settling into seiza style on the floor in the circle which the students had moved into from the rows that they had started in. Perhaps so that more of them could attack at once? Tsunade smiled softly as she opened the book in front of her. Well, if that was the case, they had made an error since she could see all of them from here and preemptively end their strike. She made herself as comfortable as possible on the hardwood floor and began to read from the parable of the bird and the fox cub. As she began, she could almost see her grandfather sitting in his office and reading the same story to her, explaining how the tale embodied everything that the village was so beautifully that even she couldn't help but sit and listen. She could not imagine how any person could do less.

Which, when a few seconds later as a small boy whom she had privately dubbed Oko since she had yet to find the roll sheet, began to comment and giggle while imitating bodily functions, she decided that her personal opinion of the story was true. No person could ignore it. Unfortunately, young demons apparently could. She raised her voice and began to read louder, emphasizing certain parts the way she remembered hearing it read to her. The noises continued, even to the end, when the bird and the fox cub were trapped in the cave and forced to work together. She sighed and glanced with relief at the clock on the wall as she prepared to question them. When she glanced at the time though, her eyes widened in shock and fear.

Even with the weeds, the arguing, and the flatuently annotated story, only one single hour had passed.

A/N: A bit of background on the story. The inspiration for it came when I walked into the class for my teaching experience and was greeted by a handful of bright shining faces that scared the hell out of me. Especially with the obvious resemblance between a few of my students and younger variations to the older Naruto characters. Yes, I teach a chibi-Gai, chibi-Kakashi, chibi-Rin, and a chibi-Obito as well as the rest of my class. Yes, fear me. That combined with several comments disparaging the intelligence of people who teach young children, erupted into this with the idea of someone with that attitude forced to teach kids for a day and attempting to deal with their antics. Also, I will put this out there, but while my students and my own diabolicalness provide many ideas, I don't mind this being interactive so feel free to review with suggestions of what should happen next to Tsunade.


	4. Chapter 4

After the attempt at reading a story to the class had failed so early in the day, Tsunade wracked her brain, trying to think of something that would get the class to where off all of the extra energy. They were far to young to take put through even the most basic of the training exercises to become shinobi, although part of Tsunade was sorely tempted to. Still, she refrained from the impulse, deciding with how the day had gone so far that they would probably all manage to accidentally generate enough chakra that she would need to heal all of the injuries they would spontaneously create with this class's almost uncanny ability for trouble.

Besides, she refused to admit defeat so easily yet. Heaven only knew what Jiraiya would expect in payment.

A walk, that was it. She would take them on a walk to the monument and they could discuss the role of the hokage and the village. That should work!

So she had the brood of heathens line up behind her and began to walk them along one of the safest paths, lined with only the most mild and recognizable of poisonous plants.

They talked and giggled behind her, but seemed far more settled than they had in the classroom. Suddenly, as they neared the turn that marked the halfway point to the monument, she heard a groan of pain from the students. Knowing that Minato would object if one of the hellions was seriously hurt, she stopped the group and went back to look at the sickening child.

It was the little boy who had made a makeshift mask out of a bandana.

"What are you wearing that for?" she asked him abruptly, not even thinking as her thought emerged from her mouth.

"I wanted to look like the nin," The boy said matter of factly. "Besides, mom wouldn't let me take my dad's. And it doesn't fit anyways."

In an odd way his logic made sense. Tsunade did not want to examine too closely what it meant for her sanity if these children were making sense. She returned to the matter of his illness.

"What is wrong then?"

"My stomach hurts," the boy whined, climbing onto her lap where she knelt and resting his head under her ample chest as he seemed to snuggle closer for comfort.

Using her chakra she looked, but she could see nothing wrong. Then she noticed a few of the green berries from one tree were missing. And the medic nin felt a twinge of memory reminding her why most children left those berries alone after the first encounter. With a soft chuckle, she pulled an antidote from her bag, a sweet chalky tablet that would counter the severe stomach pains the boy truly must be having.

Once he seemed to be more recovered, she headed back to the front of the line.

"All right, class. Since some of us seem to have difficulty recognizing certain plants, I'll point out some of the ones you should leave alone as we walk."

The class nodded and they followed, resuming their conversations. Most likely ones centered around plotting her demise.

She continued to look ahead as she lead them onward, hearing an odd conversation held in sotte voce tones from the middle of the line.

"So, Kakashi, did you see anything?"

"Shut up, Gai. I'm doing this because you are too chicken to admit that you lost the janken game."

"Did not. You had paper before you changed it to rock."

"Fine," the boy admitted with a sigh. "Not yet. I need a better strategy worked out."

"What do you mean strategy? All you had to do was to look d-", the boy with the odd glasses asked.

"What it means, Obito, is that I'm too short."

"So you admit defeat!" Gai crowed.

"Nonsense. I'll have it by the end of the day."

Tsunade shook her head, baffled by the three boys' conversation as she continued on, turning back to briefly yell at another student for trying to tie the one little girl's hair to a tree, only to have to go back and intervene to keep the same girl from beating the hell out of the boy.

Maybe they would be so tired that they would fall asleep after they came back?

Or get lost in the woods?

Tsunade did not think that she would be so lucky.


	5. Chapter 5

The trip to the monument passed otherwise uneventfully after the boy's mistake of eating the berries and stopping the fight between the other two students. However, Tsunade felt that the seeming peace was too good to last, and within minutes of arriving at the monument felt the momentary peace shatter as, with a reluctant sigh, she grabbed two ambitious students and pulled them away from where they had begun climbing the monument. Dragging them back, she began to explain the importance of the faces on the monument. This was interrupted by the sudden gale of giggles which emerged from the back as she noticed that two little boys were now wearing their shirts in facsimiles of beards and another who was wearing the shorts that had been over his leggings as a rather forcibly attached hat, one which by all appearances may need to be surgically removed if things did not improve. The self-satisfied smirk that the girl wore only confirmed what Tsunade was already beginning to dread when it came to how he was wearing the shorts, and Tsunade looked again to confirm that it was the same girl she had just corrected moments before, and in fact the same boy she had been beating up. Although, she did have to admit a certain admiration that she might have had for the girl under any other circumstances.

"Rin, I need you to quit beating up the boys. Do not make me ask again."

"Yes, Tsunade-sensei."

It would have sounded more sincere and contrite if it weren't for the fact that she was still smiling with a fierce pride when she answered, but Tsunade figured that that was the best that she could hope for and was ready to continue the lesson.

The weather decided how the rest of the lesson at the Hokage monument should continue as a sudden cloudburst came up, drenching them all.

By the time that Tsunade got the class back from their abortive lesson, all of them cold and shivering, and ill-tempered enough to make them want to listen only less, Tsunade was convinced that the storm cloud had been in league with Jiraiya and Minato. It had to have been.

In spite of her convictions on meteorologic conspiracies, another more pressing concern weighed on Tsunade's mind as soon as she saw the clock.

Not even another full hour had passed. Everything that had happened, and it was still a good hour or two away from lunch, let alone the end of the day.

How was there still so much time left?

Outside the wind blew, and Tsunade glared, convinced it was laughing.


	6. Chapter 6

Once inside the classroom again, Tsunade tried to resume the abruptly ended lesson in the classroom, but the hopes of success were even slimmer now that all of the students were ill-tempered and drenched from their trip. Using a quick warming jitsu to keep the student's from becoming ill, mostly on instinct from her training as a medic nin rather than any true concern over their well being at this point. Honestly, she was beginning to feel as if the germs had all decided that the students becoming ill would only serve to make them tractable.

Almost as if to prove this point, at that moment a frog leaped out of one of someone's pocket. The pocket of a rather delicate looking tomboy with waist length black hair braided into pigtails if the blur from her eye was to be judged as accurate.

Pandemonium instantly erupted in the class as everyone began to search for the frog and recapture the creature. All except for one of the youngest students who began to howl inconsolably from where he sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, his white shirt beginning to show obvious tear marks from his crying.

"I left it back at the monument!", the youngest boy wailed, able to be heard over the shouts of the frog hunters. A few attempts of the more compassionate students to comfort the young boy quickly turned into muttered complaints.

"Enough!!!" Tsunade shouted at the students. They all stared at her in awe, and she felt the edges of her nerves soothed slightly by this display of temper. She had had enough. And somewhere, she felt certain that some kindly spirit had taken note of that as the bell rang, marking the end of the third hour and a brief respite from teaching per se, but merely watching the students as they had their midday meal.


	7. Chapter 7

The little urchins' apparently still had not inspired enough fear in their parents for them to forget to pack lunches, Tsunade noticed with approval as she watched the young children sprawling in their spots along the wall to eat. Tsunade sighed and sat down at her own designated spot, nursing a mug of coffee in her hands as she watched the class. They all were eating in relative peace it seemed, being deceptively quiet. Even the little boy in the white shirt who had been crying moments before seemed to be a little calmer than he had, his sobbing now reduced to hiccups.

The calmness was good. Even better was the fact that it seemed that nine of the students always were to go home for lunch, and about five mercifully did not take classes during the afternoon.

The boy with the mask and the one who wore the goggles had not been in that group, sadly. She sipped her coffee wistfully.

Then, out of nowhere came the frog. It did not ribbit or leap in the manner of normal frogs. Instead, this one seemed to be screeching in terror and its 'jump' had the precise arc of a projectile weapon.

It landed in her coffee cup and she promptly dumped it, as well as the rest of the contents onto the grass.

That she could not even blame Jiraiya for. The pervert did, in his defense, take care of his summoned toads.

And most of them would not have fit in her coffee cup.

The little boy with a white shirt ran over and grabbed the frog, stuffing it back into his lunch box.

"You found it!" he squealed joyfully. "You found my froggy!"

The small child hugged her impulsively in a vice grip, and after a second, Tsunade had worked her arms free to pry him off enough. Smiling a little at his idiotic grin on reflex, she touched a thin line that ran across his face and sent him off to finish eating his lunch.

One look at the sky and she gave an idiotic grin of her own, thinking about what would come in the next five minutes.

Nap time.


	8. Chapter 8

She was sure the schedule said nap time.

Tsunade was also sure that no such thing was going on. Not unless nap was some sort of military acronym, like "Negligible Attack Protocol". It would certainly fit their attitude towards the whole thing.

If she thought it had been war before, she now knew that this was one of the first true battles in among the skirmishes. Who knew that children could move that many ways?

The boy in green and her masked menace were still fighting with each other as the boy with goggles who seemed to be the class clown more than anything tried to reconcile, only halfway through ending up in a fight with both of the other boys. Glancing at the small badge on his sleeve, Tsunade sighed. That was just what she needed, to end up in an argument with the Uchiha clan over the behavior of one of their children!

A small number of the children actually managed to remain somewhat still, or at least not overtly run around the room. The very young boy with the frog was one- although she kept an eye peeled in the direction of the begoggled boy, suspecting that had been the source of the flying amphibian during lunch. Also, the girl she had needed to reprimand lay still a short distance away, clearly eyeing a few of her classmates she may have already developed crushes on. Three children over, her previous victim also lay lazily, the dark hair and angles of his face setting off signals in the jounin's head that made her try to place why the boy would seem so familiar to her. With trying to watch the others though, that was a total failure.

Especially when, with a smirk, the boy tweaked at the skirt of one of the girl's dresses using a real, albeit infinitely small, amount of elemental wind chakra to manage his task. Before yet another skirmish erupted, Tsunade called an end to the warfare and led the littlest villagers back into the classroom, where she hoped at least get through one class without interruption.

Heavens only knew what Jiraiya, Minato, and even Sarutobi-sensei would ask in return if she didn't!


End file.
